


The Naked Knight Rides Again

by RealtaCuardach



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Humor, Merlin once again gets no sleep, Rampant Silliness, solving a mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-01-27
Packaged: 2017-11-27 04:05:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/657862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RealtaCuardach/pseuds/RealtaCuardach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Running around after naked knights in the middle of the night was in none of Merlin's job descriptions. But of course he ended up doing it anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Naked Knight Rides Again

"Merlin!" Gaius bellowed as he burst into the younger man's bedroom with a speed impressive for one of his years, causing the door to slam into the wall and the occupant in the bed bolt upwards. "You're needed in the upper town now!"

"Arthur?" Merlin asked blearily, reaching around for the tunic he had slung over the head of the bed. He mentally cursed at the smear of radish juice across the collar – Cook picked the oddest times to try strange experiments with the royal garden, and the concoction had not been well received.

Gaius flung a pair of pants at him. "Hurry!"

"Town under attack by Morgana?"

"No."

"Some magical creature wreaking havoc?"

"There is havoc," Gaius said flatly, watching Merlin jump up and nearly crash into the headpost as he struggled into his boots, "follow me, now." There was a taut stiffness in the man's face that Merlin dared not question, and instead he tore out of the physician's chambers, following his mentor out into the late darkness of the evening.

xxx

Merlin blinked once. Then twice. And then a third time. Things still didn't make sense after that, so he quit blinking and began glaring at Gaius, who looked a little sheepish. "You called me down here for this – you said this was an emergency."

Gaius crossed his arms and scowled reprovingly at the proceedings. "This is an emergency."

Merlin yawned broadly and groaned, "Come on, Gaius, someone else could do this. It doesn't have to be me."

Gaius' face was resolute. "Merlin, it's your duty."

Merlin felt the need to disagree. As Arthur's manservant, it was his duty to attend the prat, protect his life, and give advice that would be disregarded and covertly used. As Gaius' apprentice, it was his duty to help tend to the sick, gather herbs and other necessities for medicines, and keep the chambers neat. As the greatest warlock ever and destiny's securer of Avalon, it was duty to defeat all evil magical creatures, solve the obstacles in Camelot's path, and do it all in secret.

Nowhere, in any of his three jobs, did he know of any duty that required him to chase down some strange gallivanting naked man on a horse. What were the guards in this town _for_ , anyway?

"Who is it?" He whispered at Gaius, as he tried to both look away and get a closer look at the same time

"A knight," Gaius muttered back.

"No," Merlin said, shaking his head, "I mean who is he?"

"I don't know, Merlin," Gaius replied, and gave him a very pointed look. Merlin's eyes widened in response and he groaned before he dutifully returned his gaze to the…spectacle.

At first, Merlin was surprised that the knight, whoever he was, was not wearing the customary red cloak of Camelot – the knights seemed to wear them whenever they were riding. Then, he was glad that the knight wasn't wearing the cloak – it would have immediately linked the rider, and his mortifying behavior, to Camelot and her king. That, among other things, would have only made Arthur mad, and a more pratly king was something Merlin tried to avoid – it led to a lot more pointless chores for the poor manservant as Arthur could no longer rant and blow off any unregal steam in the privacy of his chambers. Not unless he wanted to look like a petulant idiot in front of his wife.

And then the horse turned and looked at Merlin, who immediately flushed and averted his eyes, wishing that the knight in question had the cloak with him – at least then he would be able to cover up with something. As it was, the man was completely exposed – to the elements, to the open air, and to the gaze of several admiring young women who were being hastily herded into their homes by their mothers. He noted that several of the disappearing matrons sent him scolding looks. Even they were making this his responsibility.

He felt an authoritative prodding in his upper shoulders and gave a yelp of pain as he turned to face an unrepentant Gaius.

"Go on then, Merlin," the older man said calmly, "the sooner this is taken care of, the sooner we can get back to sleep."

Merlin rubbed his shoulder. "Why couldn't you do it? You're the court physician, you've seen plenty of – " his face flushed a noticeable red, discernable even in the faint moonlight, and waved his hands ineffectually.

"Merlin," Gaius said in an almost long-suffering voice, "I'm too old to be chasing a mad horse about – I leave that to the young men."

That argument might have held more weight, had the horse not been standing still for the past five minutes. Although, of course, as soon as Merlin walked quietly towards it, it broke out into a speedy canter all around the square, giving all those watching a good look at his rider, whose face was constantly blank, as though he were asleep. Merlin tried chasing the horse for a good ten minutes before resorting to stronger measures.

Gaius gave his ward a very pointed look as he magically stopped the horse so abruptly that the hapless rider flung himself face forward into the horse's bony neck and knocked himself fully unconscious before falling onto the ground. Merlin shrugged in an almost irritated way. He realized that most of his rescues seemed to result, at one point or another, in the unconsciousness of whoever he was rescuing, but it was hardly as though he was doing it on purpose. And it got the job done.

Then the main task at hand was getting the unconscious knight back to the castle for a medical examination, and possibly a cold poultice for his head. (Merlin found that unnecessary, he couldn't have hit the horse that hard). It was clear that they couldn't force the man to walk back or for Merlin to drag him along with anything other than magic. And, as he couldn't use magic in public, they decided to use the horse to get him back, and there they hit another dilemma.

Which way to put the man on the horse?

To put a man wearing nothing face down on a horse seemed a bit cruel to his … lower area, but there wasn't a whole lot of dignity to having him lie across the horse face up. Although the girls who managed to peek out the windows by leaning across their mamas' arms seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.

In the end, Merlin had to strip off his shirt (causing several of the girls watching to flush and chatter enthusiastically after his naked torso) and drape it over the should-be-private area of the other man's body before securing the knight to the horse. As he walked the horse back towards the castle, trying to surreptitiously hide his bare chest and torso from the somehow equally enthusiastic gazes of the village girls, he hoped that tomorrow might be light enough so he could get some rest.

He knew better than to expect it, however.

xxx

There were times, Merlin told himself as he nearly tripped over a shadow in the training field while carrying Arthur's armor, that he hated being right. He wasn't able to get much sleep even after they'd gotten the unconscious knight back to the castle and into his chambers. Gaius had chosen that time, after they'd pulled a pair of loose trousers onto the nude knight, to examine the man's head for any damage. He didn't find any except for a growing bruise just above his hairline, although he had spent a few moments checking beneath the eyelids and clucking in a clinically fascinated fashion. "Lot of eye movement for this stage of sleep," he commented to Merlin.

Merlin had simply yawned and let his eyes drift towards the door, the closer to his own bed.

Of course, the prat didn't give him much of a break, even with the shadows under his eyes, and he'd been working solid ever since Gwen had retreated from her chambers with Arthur to do queenly things. Arthur seemed to have some sort of bizarre sense of when Merlin was especially tired and gave him even more inane tasks to complete as a result. His mind was poisoned, after years of Gaius' poor excuse making abilities, and now assumed that whenever Merlin was tired he had either been up to no good or drinking the night away at a local tavern.

He hadn't been at the tavern in weeks, but the prat was going to drive him to drink at this rate.

Oddly enough, he wasn't the only person who was half asleep on the training ground. Gwaine was weaving back and forth slightly as he watched Arthur spar with Leon, humming some sort of disjointed tune and with a drowsy yet cocky grin that made the kitchen girl, who'd come out with a message for Merlin, nearly faint. Off to the side, Percival was trying his best to pay attention, but kept raising his highly muscled and therefore highly noticeable arm to hide his yawns. Next to him, Elyan was examining his sword for any breaks and muttering curses under his breath when it slipped from his tired fingers.

Even Leon, usually the epitome of professionalism and propriety, was distracted. In his drowsy state, Arthur was quickly able to defeat him, and Leon found himself on the ground with his king's sword at his chest. Arthur grinned down at him.

"Do you yield?" he asked, raising one eyebrow in triumph.

Leon nodded and laughed before taking Arthur's hand to be pulled back to his feet. "Well played, Arthur," he replied and then groaned, rubbing the small of his back.

"Are you all right?" Arthur asked, "Should Merlin go get Gaius?"

Leon shook his head. "I'm fine," he replied, "just getting old, I suppose."

"Nonsense!" Arthur barked, slapping him on the shoulder. And then yawned.

"Tired, Princess?" Gwaine grinned rakishly, "Were you up all night?"

His tone made it clear that he had a pretty good idea just what might have been keeping Arthur up the night before, but Arthur didn't respond. He simply turned a bright red that wasn't caused by the exertion of the sparring, and ran a hand consciously through his hair. Gwaine roared with laughter, and was joined by several of the older knights, although Percival flushed a dark red and Elyan hid his face with one of his hands. There were some things a brother preferred not to know.

Arthur reached valiantly for a more placid expression and said brusquely, "That'll be all for the morning. Let's break for lunch." He looked over at Merlin, who had taken a step forward, "What did the girl have to say?"

Merlin cleared his throat and his face assumed the apologetic cast of one about to impart unwelcome news. "She wanted to war-let us know that the cook has prepared more of the radish juice. And," he added as he saw most of the knights pale in horror, "she expects everyone to drink it. And like it."

The groans seemed to harmonize with each other and fill the whole of the arena as the knights gathered up their equipment and trooped to the armory. "That woman is barking, I'm telling you," Gwaine muttered in a loud aside to the others, and there was a response of general agreement.

"I don't know," Leon replied, "I like it. I haven't had it since I was a young boy."

"You're barking," Gwaine mumbled, "You want my juice? You can have it."

Merlin had to bite back a grin as he heard the knights all clamoring to let Leon to have their juice. They might have to roll the senior knight out of the dining room after lunch.

xxx

Merlin had spent all day discretely observing the knight, checking him for any sort of magical enchantment or curse that might have led to his odd behavior the night before. But beyond a bit of tiredness, there was nothing wrong with his appearance or behaviors. Merlin would have liked to put it down as a fluke, but things were never quite that easy.

Therefore, he was hardly surprised when Gaius once again burst into his room and more or less demanded that Merlin fix the situation. That hardly seemed fair – this seemed more medical or psychosomatic, and that was really Gaius' field. But there was no use arguing with Gaius, especially when he kept joggling Merlin's elbow like that, and so he drearily got up to fix the problem again.

Just like last night, the horse was confused and jittery, and the knight didn't respond to any of Merlin's pleading. Only this time, there was an entire audience of goggling younger women, all cooing and squealing in appreciation of the knight's admittedly sculpted physique. Now Merlin had to not only contend with a skittish horse, a naked knight, a gaggle of disapproving townswomen and a scoffing Gaius, now there was a score of giggling young women he had to contend with. So magic was really out of the question now, and Merlin was groggy and running out of options.

It was distinctly hard to both chase after the horse and preserve whatever he could of the knight's dignity. In fact, if the girls' increased squealing was any indication, the jolting of the horse was exposing more of the knight if anything. Merlin spent several minutes chasing after the horse in vain, even falling into a huge puddle at one point, soaking his shirt clean through. He took it off (the night was chilly and he couldn't afford to catch a cold) and for some reason, the girlish giggling and squealing only intensified. If he hadn't been so irritated at not catching the horse, he might have spent a few moments trying to puzzle it out.

At one point, he seriously considered just using a simple spell and knocking the whole lot unconscious. But he talked himself out of it. The gratuitious show of illegal magic notwithstanding, it would also mean that he and Gaius (meaning just him) would then have to lug all the unconscious females back into their homes. That would take time and only the most optimistic would assume they could get the right women in the right house the first time around. Also, Gaius had been giving him a hard time lately about just how many times Arthur had been knocked unconscious in their adventures. He was still surprised that no amount of brain damage seemed to have occurred, but he still was apprehensive about it happening.

Even though most of those times Merlin had nothing to do with it, he still got the lecture. And so he was especially careful to avoid knocking people out.

"The naked knight…he's riding again!" One of the girls whispered to a friend who had just walked and was gleefully gobsmacked at the sight. _Well,_ Merlin thought, _it could be worse. They could actually know who he is._

He got the horse to stop merely by a lucky break. He'd gotten so frustrated at chasing around the bloody horse for nearly half an hour with a sodden shirt under his arm, that he'd just thrown the material at the animal. It had covered the horse's eyes and, deprived of sight, the horse slowed to a gradual walk and then finally stopped.

If he'd had the energy, Merlin would have cried in relief.

The girls moaned as one at the end of the show, and the mothers began to herd them back into their homes, giving Merlin and the knight looks that were not completely disapproving. One of the younger ones even winked at them.

They walked the horse back to the castle, with Merlin's soaked shirt stretched strategically over the knight (because it was better than nothing and Merlin was not about to take off his pants to cover the other man. If he got a cold in the morning, that was fine with Merlin at that point), and attempted to sneak into Gaius' chambers without running into anyone. They'd almost made it.

The two had actually managed to lug the sleeping knight straight to Gaius' chambers where they ran into someone at the door. It was Gwen – she still wasn't quite used to being waited on at odd hours of the night, so if she needed something after her maidservant had gone to bed she tended to get it herself.

"Hello," she smiled brightly at the two, "I was hoping I wouldn't disturb you. I just needed some tonic for an upset stomach." She cocked an eyebrow at Merlin's shirtless state. "Why are you not wearing a – "

She then saw the nearly nude bundle behind them and turned a bright red. "Leon?" Her mouth opened and closed before it quirked into an almost restrained smile. "Oh, I might have known. It's the radishes, isn't it?"

The two conscious men in the hallway stared at her. "What do you mean, Gwen?" Gaius asked wearily, "And please say it slowly, these old bones aren't used to wandering around this time of night."

"My mother worked as a maid for his family," Gwen began, trying valiantly not to look at the naked knight, "and once or twice, when she stayed for the night, she saw Leon sleepwalking."

"Sleepwalking?" Merlin asked.

Gwen nodded. "And both times it happened after they'd had radishes for lunch or supper. Something about the radishes must have set him off, because they stopped eating them when he was very little, and he's never sleepwalked since."

Merlin stared at his friend for a few minutes before bursting out into laughter. "It all comes down to radishes then? No illness, nothing serious."

Gwen shook her head.

"Okay then." Merlin's manic grin was slightly frightening.

xxx

When the cook went to the palace garden the next day, she found that somehow all the radishes were ruined. If she hadn't known any better, she might have guessed that they'd all been set on fire.

There was general cheering on the part of the knights and the kitchen staff at the devastating news, although Leon had sighed wistfully at the loss of his childhood favorite.

Merlin simply stood at the back and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a title prompt from mannana at the Heart of Camelot. It's a bit silly, but there you are!
> 
> Who all managed to guess who the naked knight was? :D


End file.
